Hugo 2022 Novellas: Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Ursula le Guin’s debut novel Rocannon’s World features many of the elements of her later Hainish cycle, including the instantaneous communication device, called an “ansible”. The eponymous protagonist is an ethnologist who, at least at the start, reflects her approach of having visitors to an “alien” world be primarily interested in the people and the society. The story though does something else. Using Rocannon’s background and broader mission (find a hidden enemy base of faster-than-light ships) as a hard science-fiction frame, the story mixes in many elements of heroic fantasy or older pulp planetary romances. Flying steeds and sword-wielding heroes and psychic powers are the meat and potatoes of the story even if the theory of relativity is a key plot element.

Rocannon’s World isn’t the only 1960’s sci-fi novel to do this of course. More famously Anne McCaffery’s Pern stories have a sci-fi rationale for a fantastical world of dragon riders. Frank Herbert’s Dune sits further on the sci-fi part of the spectrum but isn’t shy about its fantastical elements.

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s novella Elder Race explores this idea of a fantasy setting that is really a science fiction setting with a dual perspective on events. Nyr is an anthropologist stationed on a world that was colonised in a now ancient wave of human expansion, such that the inhabitants have largely lost advanced technology and their original history is just confused legend. However, Nyr’s mission itself was at a peak of a later wave of human (re-)exploration. He is the last of his team, hanging on to the project via cryogenic suspension so that he can continue to watch generations of the inhabitants engage in their own history.

To Lynesse, a local princess or a long line of warrior queens, Nyr and his base is something else altogether: Nyrgoth the fabled wizard who once came to the aid of one of her ancestors to defeat an evil warlord who had used ancient magics. Now a new demonic evil is blighting a nearby land and Lynesse has both a duty and an opportunity to prove herself worthy.

Alternating chapters flip perspectives between Lynesse and Nyr as they engage with the quest/mission to confront the demon/techno-plague blighting the land. Lynesse sees the unfathomable and aloof magician Nyrgoth as a powerful being who is disdainful of the lowly needs of the lesser people. Meanwhile, Nyr himself is a conflicted mess, only holding himself together by artificial means as the weight of depression, loneliness and the past violation of his duty to only observe and not interfere catches up with him.

The dual perspectives extend even to language. Nyr can explain that he isn’t a wizard but only a scholar who understands underlying natural forces and who has some command of ancient technology but to Lynesse these are the same concepts: Nyrgoth is saying he isn’t a wizard but a wizard who understands wizardry and can do wizard things.

Without spoiling things, the eventual conflict with the demon is interesting and well done. The story does pull itself altogether within the bounds of a novella but just barely. This is a novel wanting to burst out of its word count limit and I suspect that it is only Tchaikovsky’s prolific output in general that prevented it from being much longer. We don’t really spend much time getting to know more about Lynesse’s companion Esha, who is sketched out as a really interesting figure but…it’s a novella and there’s just only so much space. A later addition to the party, an outlaw (sorry, can’t find the character’s name now) who is a sole surviving witness to a demonic attack is another “tell me more about this character” character.

The demon itself…well, lots of (intentionally) unanswered questions. Those inexplicable aspects are important so that Nyr is placed in a more even setting with Lynesse: they must confront and fight a threat that exceeds their understanding. Even so…it does raise the question “and then what?”. A sequel wouldn’t be as good but this is one of those hearty meals that has you demanding seconds.

I’m a fan of Tchaikovsky’s work and this is a good introduction for readers to his style of taking conventional SF&F ideas and taking them a bit further and digging into them. It’s also just a really fun adventure.

High up on my ballot but purely in terms of Hugo voting this is more of a explore-existing-ideas-of-SF&F rather than push-the-boundaries-of-SF&F. On the giant map of the genre, this is filling in the details of territory we have skipped over rather than charting out unfamiliar lands. There’s a place for that though.